


The Mundane Casebook of DS Winter

by asparagusmama



Series: The Mundane Lives of the Two James [1]
Category: Lewis (TV), Midsomer Murders - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Oxfordshire 'Police' and Midsomer Murders locations are all Thames Valley Police really, Slice of Life, crimes other than murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23694211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: The mundane life of crime and down time of DS Jamie Winter in Midsomer.Crimes other than murder happen will all too frequency in Midsomer county, and sometimes by design, sometimes by accident of being nearby, a CID DS gets to deal with them... and when he has time, Jamie Winter likes to take time off, but as he thinks himself, 'how sad is his life'!In other words, snippets in the life of Winter[Lewis crossover chapter 5]
Series: The Mundane Lives of the Two James [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706317
Comments: 17
Kudos: 21





	1. ABH

The wind howled down the Causton High Street on a wild winter Friday night. Storm warnings had been put out for the next two days, but this was far from the calm before the storm. Rain sheeted down, and at closing time, the dark streets were beginning to become full of the merry and the more aggressive type of drunk. All three pubs and the licenced wine bar let out peoples of all classes, and none. That included Jamie Winter, having enjoyed a glass of wine or two with his meal, he was perfectly content to walk back to the station and pick up his car, knowing he was under the limit when he saw a commotion outside the fried chicken and doner kebab shop.

A man in an expensive suit was getting rather leery with a younger woman, who was better dressed for the summer, her bare legs going blue and mottled in the cold wind, as was her rather ample cleavage.

“Leave us alone you prick!” she yelled in a local Midsomer accent.

“If you don’t want to be bothered, don’t dress like a tart, what!” boomed the very inebriated, wealthy, man, flipping back his flopping fringe from his chinless face. He then grabbed the women by the arm.

Winter slipped his hand into his jacket pocket to get his warrant card, and was about to step in when a man came out from the shop, shaven head, large, angry, and headbutted the posher man. Blood spurted from his nose.

“Keep you fucking hands to yourself, you pervert!” he yelled and pulled back his hand to punch, but Jamie was there, holding his wrist.

“Why don’t you calm down, Sir?”

“Me? He’d the one going around harassin’-” the man began, before the suited man kicked him.

Winter tried to get in-between the two men as a scuffle of two groups formed around the bankers and the farm-labourers and shop and warehouse workers. He managed to hit his panic button on his phone.

Fortunately, a riot van was parked up only around the corner, behind Waitrose, watching two more pubs, and soon Winter had back-up, and both men were arrested, and their ‘friends’ cautioned, and the woman asked if she wished to prosecute the man for sexual assault.

“He only touched me arm. What about Josh, he were only protecting me, he were!” she answered, and burst into tears.

“I know, but we can’t go around nutting people, for whatever reason,” Jamie said. “Come on, let’s get you over to the taxi rank.”

“What will happen to Josh? He’s my cousin. He can’t afford to lose his job, his girlfriend’s pregnant.”

“Look, I don’t know. But I’ll go back to the station and see what I can do. I need your name and address, and someone can come to see you in the morning for a statement, if that is okay? Else you can come back with me now?”

The girl snorted and sniffed and swallowed back her snot and tears, wiping her eyes and nose with her denim jacket sleeve. “Katy Anderson. I live in Badger’s Drift, 3 Moorcroft Lane. You know them old council houses past the pub, hidden by the wood?”

Winter nodded, even though he was yet to go to Badger’s Drift, knowing it only by reputation.

“And I can’t afford no taxi. it’s like 17 miles, that’s 35 quid this time of night.”

Winter peeled out four ten pound notes and gave them to her. “Take care Ms Anderson. I don’t suppose you know who the man who was bothering you is?”

“Oh, I don’t know his name, but he’s one of the weekend lot, you know, bankers and that, buying up all the houses and pricing us locals out. Treats us locals like he owns us too. Dickhead!” she spat on the floor.

Winter opened the taxi door of the first taxi. Calling the little lay-by, the other side of the market square and town hall of the centre of Causton, a ‘taxi rank’ was a little ambitious, but still, taxis would wait there hoping for fares.

“I’ll see what I can do. It might help your cousin if you were to make a complaint about sexual harassment to the officer who visits. Night night.”

*

As it took three officers to subdue Joshua Anderson and get him in the car, Winter wasn’t sure if he could give a caution and let him go.

Meanwhile, the Honourable Toby Aston-Smythe was making a fuss in the medical room next to the cells in the basement of the small nick in Causton. 

The police station was old, Victorian, built in the local brick and flint style. When Jamie had first arrived it had impressed him, as did the rolling hills of the chalk up-lands with beechwood topped summits, and the heavy clay soil of the river valleys with pretty cottages dotted about the villages, along with the more modern builds, all sparsely spread among the green, and sometimes gold with wheat or bright yellow with rapeseed, fields, many of the steeper slopes up to the wooded tops dotted with fluffy sheep. All his years in London had made him forget it all. Compared with the grey concrete and sickly trees in small squares in the west London borough he had transferred from, he had felt at first this was going to be an easy life. But sometimes now, Jamie longed for the mundane gang related knife crimes and hot-blooded domestic manslaughters of someone pushed down the stairs or over a balcony, compared to the gory and inventive ways the middle classes killed each other in Midsomer County!

“Do you need me?” he asked the night desk sergeant, an officer Jamie had only seen a couple of times before, as he went through, ignoring the non-stop entitled braying about being the victim.

“I’ll see,” he answered, hurrying away to fetch the custody sergeant, a rather rotund middle-aged women, who had been on the beat for years, before being assaulted while making an arrest in Midsomer Meadows, and had been stuck on the desk for years. Winter had heard the tale in his first week, each time the telling getting more aggressive and, at the time, unbelievable. Later, he was to understand the mad, inventive, items some used to kill in Midsomer. Which was odd, as statistically, you found far more guns in the countryside among the wealthy than even in London or Manchester. The women she had arrested had killed four people with whole cheeses and milk pales, apart from the one she had drowned in a milk tanker. According the DCs in the office, this hadn’t even been the only bizarre dairy related spate of serial killings.

The desk sergeant hurried back to his nice little cushy desk, and Jamie followed the custody sergeant to the stairwell, listening yet again to her story. He tried to interrupt her flow to ask if he were actually needed in the interview rooms or could go home, but before he could do so, the door to the rest of the station opened, and a harassed young West Indian uniformed officer called, “Sarg, I am so glad you came back! We need a CID officer.”

“What about the night cover DC?”

“Cutbacks, init?”

“Oh. Yes.” He remembered a memo from the Chief Constable, something about the excellence of the Uniform and Traffic and how, as CID senior staff were called out for the many murders of the county, they could cope with any other reason Uniform needed a CID presence, and they had to make so many savings over the next two financial years, and Uniform did an excellent job and protecting the public day in, day out. Fond of the word, excellent, the Chief Constable was, Winter had gathered.

Procedure demanded a CID officer interview anyone cautioned for any violence criminal offence. Winter decided to take the young man in with him, along with another, older, very beefy looking officer, just until Joshua Anderson calmed down, anyway.

*

Mr Anderson looked up as DS Winter walked into the interview room. He looked defeated now, all the bluster and aggression gone.

“Mr Anderson, my name is DS Winter, let’s get this sorted out, shall we?”

Josh looked up. “You were there, you tried to stop me!”

“I tried to stop both of you, yes. But now we have a situation where Mr Aston-Smythe has a bloody nose, perhaps even a broken one.” He turned to one of the constables in the room with him, “Has the medic seen him yet? Can we check? And would you like a cup of tea, Mr Anderson?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Ta. Am I under arrest?”

“For now.”

“I was only defending my cousin, you know that. Is she okay?”

“I put her in a taxi, and paid for it. Someone will take her statement in the morning.”

“Thanks!”

The door opened, and the officer put the cup of tea in front of Anderson. “Thank you Constable, I’m sure we’re fine now. Mr Anderson has no intention of fighting any more, do you?”

The young man hung his head. “No, no sorry. Sorry officer. Officers. I was a bit drunk.”

“More than a bit, really,” the officer who had brought the tea said. “I’ll go back out in the riot van, if that’s okay Sarg? Last bus back from Oxford with the nightclub goers is due into Causton Market Square in 10 minutes.”

“Sounds like that’s important,” Winter agreed. He was usually home by this time, so had not seen what a bus full of drunk people could do to the town, but he’d been in several London boroughs, and had grown up the other side of Midsomer as a boy, in the large town of High Midcombe, with its own separate, dedicated, station and SCU CID, so he could imagine.

“Right,” Winter said, opening a statement pad, after they were alone but the silent older Constable standing by the recording button to active audio and visual recordings, by the door. He looked desperate to get back onto the beat, so Winter let him go. He then turned to Anderson, “Let’s get your statement, and then I’m afraid it’s a night in the cells. However much someone is being a sexist dick, you can’t go around nutting him and possibly breaking his nose.”

“I know. I’m gonna lose my job over this. I can’t afford to lose me job. I’ve fucked my life right up!”

“I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, be as honest as you can be with your statement, and I’m afraid you will have to spend a night in the cells. Once I’ve got this down, I’ll see you in the morning. It’s the best I can do, in the circumstances. You took several officers to get you in the van, and they are not happy.”  
*

“What do I do about the other one?” the custody sergeant asked, once Winter came out of the detention block, having seen Anderson into his cell for the night. She seemed to have been waiting for him.

“How is his nose?”

“Swollen but undamaged, according the medic.”

“Good.”

“So, what do we do?”

Winter smiled. The man could be heard all over the lower levels of the custody suite and interview rooms, being rude to the police, the young man he had got into a fracas with, and the young women he has assaulted, all of it drenched in classism and snobbery, an attitude straight out of an interwar detective novel.

One actually awaited Jamie at home, he had recently bought Margery Allingham’s Campion novels as graphic novels. ‘Look to the Lady’ was waiting for him, with a cup of tea and some biscuits. How sad was his life, still living in a hotel, waiting for this boss on high, the almighty Barnaby, to give up waiting for his precious Nelson and give him a permanent contract.

“Well, I assume he’s demanded his lawyer?”

“Yeah, loudly and frequently,” she grinned back.

“Then leave him in his cell. I’ll deal with him in the morning, I doubt his well-paid brief will get out of bed at 1 am.”

*

By lunchtime the next day, when his boss returned from some conference in Oxford, Winter had the whole, small, sorry business finished with. Both men, after a night in the cells to sober up, had been released with a recorded Caution, but no prosecution. However, Winter had sent PC Angel Robinson, the sweetest and deadliest of officers to ever work in the Sexual Crimes Unit, to take Katy Anderson’s statement and three hours after his release, a second warrant was issued for his arrest. Of course, CPS might throw it out as a trivial with little evidence, but then against, it was witnessed by an officer of the law, that was, DS Jamie Winter, so hopefully Aston-Smythe would at least have his time up in court to rethink his attitude and believe and give him time to realise that working class girls in Midsomer were not his toys. It seemed like there were many more serious crimes he would get away with, at least according to a lot of hearsay, but a slap on the wrist and a suspended sentence was better than nothing.

... Just as long as he didn’t go on a murderous rampage as revenge. That sort of thing happened only too often here in Midsomer, it was like living in a rather melodramatic novel at times.

It really was why Winter wished to stay here.


	2. Assault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie's peaceful Sunday off takes a dark turn when a boy is pushed out of a car.

Murder permitting, Jamie Winter usually had a quiet Sunday. He had a leisurely bath after a lie-in, reading, and once a month, Sarah invited him to Sunday lunch. His boss was grumpy about this, but probably for appearances, and he actually enjoyed getting down on the floor and playing with little Betty, building bricks with her or whatever, making sure Paddy didn’t eat the toys or knock Betty over in his enthusiasm.. A small, tiny, part of his mind still dreamed of a happy ever after with Kam, and their own little children, a boy and a girl, ideally. That was the biggest regret, the one who got away. One Sunday a month, murder permitting, he also played the dutiful son and went to visit his Mum in High Midcombe. Popping in sometimes on the way home on his Dad and step Mum, but mostly not. It was okay, although his Mum was getting more ill and he worried and occasionally suggested he request a transfer, and she would always say if he was happy where he was at work, and if he was happy generally in life, so was she. They walked in the beechwoods when she was able too, and the weather wasn’t too awful, and cooked a chicken, or had a takeaway. Being more urban that the rest of Midsomer put together, his hometown was almost as good a London for getting decent takeaway – West Indian and African and Indian and Thai and Chinese, all a click away. If he ordered extra, he knew his Mum had a decent meal for the next couple of days too. Likewise, if he cooked a chicken and rice or veg and roast potatoes, she was sorted for a few days.

During most of the time since he had arrived nearly three years ago, he played for a Causton Police Station five a side football team, which played in the local pub club league – mostly fat, out of condition men running around the pitch, getting a bit too aggressive with their tackling. His team had been top of the league for years. Police officers, of course, tended to be far fitter that plumbers or solicitors, and so on. It was fun.

Then it was a leisurely long late lunch in a pub or restaurant. Two of the three Michelin star restaurants in Britain were in Midsomer, but of course he could never afford to eat there, but it did make the rest up their game somewhat. There were a lot of good eating placing, as long as you wanted good, comforting English pub grub, American style diner, or a French or Italian bistro.

This had been a Sunday with no football, an unseasonably warm winter day, so Jamie went for a post prandial walk along the river; he’d even snaffled a roll from his meal for the ducks.

How absolutely and utterly sad his life really was, he mused.

Willows dipped into the water’s edge, and on the rising ridge beyond the town the bare beech trees scattered the weak, winter sunlight. Unlike during the summer months, the river towpath was nearly empty. He only met a couple of dog walkers.

He walked for miles, not really thinking, just enjoying the quiet, and before he knew it, he was halfway to Midsomer Wellow. He left the footpath and got up to the road, and found a bus stop. Fortunately he was on a main road, which was also luckily on the X4 route of the main Trans-Midsomer bus route, connecting Oxford just north of Midsomer, to Causton through Midsomer Deverell, and then all the way to High Midcombe in the very south of the country, on the borders of Greater London, with a bus link connector to Heathrow, running through Midsomer Wellow and Midsomer Parva to his home town. As a teenager he used to ride the buses a lot, until he went to the LSE and then Hendon and joined the Met. He’d never imagined coming home, but he loved it, loved the countryside, the very reason he rode the buses or cycled out of his town to the county as a boy. He’d forgotten the beauty he’d loved as a boy during his years in London.

There was one bus an hour, it being a Sunday, and he’d just missed it. He wondered how far it was to the next stop, and if walking to it was a risk? But there was no footpath, and so he sat on the wooden bench in the shelter and took out his water and a book from his backpack and waited.

It was quiet, all he could hear was the coo of the wood pigeons and the peewit cry of a red kite as it circled some roadkill further up. Occasionally a four by four or dinky little sports car sped past, too fast, for the badly maintained stretch of country road, and certainly way beyond the speed limit, with its twists and turns, its potholes and bumps in the road, and the poor visibility from overgrown hedgerows. Midsomer Constabulary really ought to put up more speed traps. Or Midsomer County Council should spend some money on repairing and upgrading the roads. Or both.

He took out an apple and the graphic novel he was reading, an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Sometimes Barnaby made him feel so stupid, and after Sarah had spent an entire day raving about Jane Austin, he thought he ought to find out what it was about. He was enjoying the biting social commentary, which despite the appalling gender inequalities of its time, still was quite accurate in many ways. Although he had enjoyed the graphic novel adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies much better.

Another car went past, a rather battered, muddy, old Land Rover, a proper country vehicle, going too fast, clipping the hedgerows and oak tree just beyond the bus shelter in which he sat, before slowing down with squealing the brake pads and tyres just beyond the bend rather than before it, and then skidded as it sped off. Jamie thought he heard a cry, so leaving his bag, apple, and book, walked down the round and around the bend to see.

An Asian boy was scrambling up out of the bushes. He was bruised, grazed, and the nasty rash of many nettle stings were blooming all over his bare arms and legs. He was dressed in a dirty red tee shirt and ripped denim cut offs too big and held up with string.

“Are you alright?” Winter began gently.

The boy looked startled and confused.

“It’s okay. I just want to know that you are alright? My name is Jamie? What’s yours?”

The boy looked at Jamie, terrified, and shook his head. Just then a car came and the boy continued to stand there, like a rabbit startled by the headlights. Jamie pushed him back into the verge as the speeding car whipped past them, far too close for comfort. After that, Jamie took the boy’s wrist and led him quickly and firmly to the bus shelter, where his belongings were. The boy grabbed his half-eaten apple as if he were starving, and ate it too quickly, core and pips and all.

“Hey, slow down, you’ll make yourself sick!”

The boy just continued gobbling the remaining pieces of apple.

“Hungry, are you?” Jamie rooted through his bag, and found another apple, a fruit leather, and a cereal bar, and offered them to the boy.

“Here you go – but slowly, okay. And have some water too,” he added, opening his water bottle.

“I’m Jamie,” he said again, as the boy ate and drank desperately. “Can you tell me your name? Where you came from? Who pushed you out of the car?”

The boy looked at him with little comprehension.

“I guess you don’t speak English. Jamie,” Jamie repeated, pointing to himself, then at the boy. “I’m Jamie. You are -?” he gestured again.

“Chinh.”

“Chinh,” Jamie repeated. “Do you have any English at all?”

“No English. Chinh.”

“Where do you come from?” Jamie waved his arms about. “Here Midsomer. England. Britain. United Kingdom. You…?” he pointed at Chinh again.

Chinh just shook his head.

“Well, Chinh, I know you don’t understand me, but we need to get you looked at, see a doctor. Doctor. Help you,” he said slowly, in case the boy had some English but was too scared to comprehend. “I’m going to radio for a car. Police car. I’m a police officer. You are safe.”

“Police! No!” Chinh panicked and tried to run, but his legs crumbled. He sat on the road, crying. If Jamie hadn’t pulled him back to the bus shelter seat, he’d have been run over by the bus as it pulled into the stop.

Deciding that it would be safer just to get him to Causton, he gently persuaded Chinh onto the bus and paid the fares.

There were only three people on the bus, a teenage couple and an elderly man, and they were all white, working class, locals, who stared at Chinh, the old man open mouthed. Jamie loved it here, loved his job, but forgot the small mindedness of the rural country folk and the prejudice of the wealthy both, throughout most of the county, excluding High Midcombe, where he came from, as well as Causton itself to a certain extent, and of course London where he had studied and trained and had his probationary time in uniform and then spent the last few years working in various boroughs, until his transfer, if a rolling temporary contract could be called a transfer back to his home county. In London you expected people of all hues and languages, all cultures and religions. Here people came in two types mostly – white and very rich, and white and very poor. He was guessing racism came in two types too – snide asides while polite to the face, and open-mouthed staring at best, and drunken comments or more at worst. Why didn’t he get a transfer to his hometown, he’d be there for his mother as she grew sicker, as she would one day, he wondered briefly. Very briefly. He knew the answer to that one.

They went to the very back, and Chinh seemed to relax, and knelt up and looked out of the window like an excited child half his age. If Jamie were to guess his age, it would be 13 or 14 at most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My subconscious seems to have an entire headcanon back story for Jamie which it is letting me on on bit by bit as I write. We'll find out together, lol!
> 
> Part 2 of Chinh's story in a week, I promise.


	3. Abducted

Winter had phoned ahead, and a plain CID car met them, so as not to alarm them. DC Fielding was curious, he could tell, but she kept quiet, as he had asked, and drove them to the hospital. A duty social worker met them there, a short older man with dyed hair and glasses, and they were shown straight away into a private cubicle in A&E, by-passing all the usual check-ins, waits, triage and more waits. The doctor, another Asian, but British Chinese, had a translator already on the end of a phone.

“Ask him what happened?”

“Sorry, sergeant, but this is an NHS translator, for medical reasons. I must ask you to wait outside.”

Chinh had other ideas, and hung on to Jamie’s arm, so the doctor dismissed the social worker and let Jamie stay.

Through the translator they uncovered a history of maltreatment and injuries, and also that he was suffering from both chest and kidney infections at the very least, if not also suffering from some kind of long-term illness.

“Must be why he was dumped,” the doctor, Dr Heng Lei, said sadly.

“Yes,” sighed Winter. “I’ll need to let the Human Trafficked and Modern Slavery Division know. I had thought so.”

“I’ll need to keep him in for observations and IV antibiotics, plus we need to get a saline in too, he’s so dehydrated. My guess is they stopped feeding him when he was too ill to work.”

“Cannabis farm, do you think?”

Heng picked up the boy’s hand, “This is just good old-fashioned dirt under his nails. Could be cabbages for all we know.”

Jamie nodded, for all he knew either. More and more farms were using modern slaves, not only internationally trafficked people either, the last raid he’d been on had been to liberate three travellers and a young Downs Syndrome man who had been working on a chicken farm and slaughter and packing plant, along with three more men from China.

*

What had started as a pleasant Sunday afternoon ended up being a stressful evening and night, and Monday. Chinh would not let go of Jamie, so he stayed with him as he was transferred to general paediatrics, again given a side room, and stayed, stroking his hair as he was set up with a line of saline, one of antibiotics and one of pain relief. One of the night shift nurses was Cambodian but spoke Vietnamese, so the tele-translator was relieved. The duty social worker had spent hours trying and failing to find a possible foster family, who were willing to take a non-English speaking illegal immigrant. He left to attend another emergency call, promising Winter Chinh would be assigned his own social worker in the morning’s handover team meeting, when the manager was in the office.

Jamie slept a few fretful hours on the chair beside the boy. He knew he could have left him, but the boy cried his name every time he tried to leave him in the care of the paediatric staff, that he couldn’t do it. He woke to a figure standing over him.

“Morning,” DCI Barnaby said sternly.

“Sir,” he replied roughly, struggling to sit up. Barnaby stood over him in the chair, holding out a large coffee and a paper bag which smelt of bacon.

“There’s taking a case too close to heart, and going above and beyond, and that’s what you are doing Winter,” Barnaby said dryly, passing him the coffee.

“Yes Sir. Sorry Sir.” Winter sipped the coffee, black, sweet and hot.

“You’ve built up trust, and that is good. I suggest you go home, have a shower, something to eat –” he waved the bag, “- and come back. The Human Traffic officer is coming in this afternoon with a translator. If we can find where he was being held, there will be others we can release. I’ve managed to get a flag on an active Midsomer Constabulary case, so I’ve stayed any Immigration involvement for now. Not on my watch am I having a vulnerable child deported back into the hands of traffickers.” Barnaby smiled wryly, “Besides, Sarah would have my guts for garters if I did so.”

“Isn’t she secretary of the Causton anti-slavery group Sir?” Winter took a huge gulp of the coffee, then put it on the nightstand between his chair and Chinh’s hospital bed. Chinh slept on, snoring slightly, snuffling and coughing in his sleep, as he had done all night.

“You know she is. Any sign the poor boy’s been a victim of anything other than physical abuse?” Barnaby handed him the paper bag with the food.

“None Sir, at least the A&E and paediatrics admissions assessment doctors said not, although he would need a full screen to make sure,” he replied, opening the bag and easing out a corner of the sandwich to take a bite. It was home-made, bacon and brown sauce

“Small mercies. Hello,” John said, smiling at the boy who now seemed to be waking, “I’m John.”

“Jamie Papa?” Chinh asked shyly.

“Not quite, but it will do for now,” John Barnaby nodded, smiling. “Drink your coffee, then you can get home for a shower and some clean clothes,” he said to Winter, adding awkwardly, “Jamie.”

Jamie nodded. He couldn’t remember his boss calling him by his given name, in all the Sunday dinners and parties and babysitting and dog sitting he had done at his boss’ house. But if going by how loved and supported little Betty was, Barnaby was not a bad father to have at all.

*

Winter was gone for three hours, taking his boss’ car to get home, and showering, and eating some more, and putting a work suit on, before he went back. He found his boss playing snap with Chinh, with the kind of small children’s cards with pictures that were ideal for someone with little or no English. However, it had turned out Chinh has a little English, - yes, no, hungry, sweep up, pick, wash – words to go with his work, or supposed enforced work, that Barnaby had worked out through the card game.

“Ah, here he is,” Barnaby said, looking up.

“Jamie,” Chinh grinned, looking up. He was still skin and bone, and covered with bruises, and still had two IV lines running into him, but he looked less haunted.

“Human Traffic are sending their team from Midcombe, be here soon,” Barnaby whispered in his ear as they crossed at the doorway to the private cubicle the ward had put the boy in. “Family team at social services still are trying to find a foster family for him, but they’ve appointed him a named social worker, she’ll try to be here for when the team get here,” his boss updated him.

“So they won’t deport him?” Jamie checked

“Not yet, anyway. Not at all if I have anything to do with it,” Barnaby replied darkly. He raised a hand. “Bye Chinh.”

Chinh waved and said carefully and slowly, “Goodbye John.”

*

Jamie said beside Chinh while he ate his lunch, which was brought soon after he arrived. Jamie showed him how to use a knife and fork, and explained the sausages and mash in a few simple words, signs and pictures from a toddler picture book he got from a box in the playroom. They them spent time looking at the pictures, telling each other what the various farm animals were in each other's language, until two doctors arrived, a paediatric general practitioner and a paediatric neuropsychiatrist. They got a translator on the phone, and ran through a lot of checks with him regarding his health and well-being.

Jamie lowered his estimation of the Chinh’s age down a few years.

“We have to get the report done for your colleagues and his social worker,” one of the women said to Jamie, before they hurried out.

Chinh was looking wiped out, and struggling to lie down. Jamie plumped his pillows, “Sleep,” he said, holding his hands to the side of his heads in what he hoped was a universal sign for sleeping.

“Scare. Hurt,” Chinh said, reaching for his hand.

Jamie had ‘Peppa Pig’ on his phone for when he babysat Betty on nights she refused to sleep, and he grew fatigued of reading the same book, Betty’s favourite. He was sure Sarah would not approve, but one night when Betty would not stop jumping on her bed, his Mum suggested it. “TV did you no harm,” she said then.

Chinh drifted into a doze, and Jamie left him in search of a cup of tea. He met the, presumable, Human Traffic officers, as well as Chinh’s social worker, in the corridor, in conference with the two doctors who had assessed him.

The doctors were both women, as was the social worker and one of the police officers, and the other officer towered over the women, at well over six feet. He was skinny and tall, South Asian, and in a smart, expensive, suit of dark grey, his hair in a quiff. His colleague was East Asian in appearance, also wearing a trouser suit, a black one, with an open necked blouse and chunky beads around her neck and right wrist. She carried a folder, he a tablet. Perhaps he had been presumptive to assume they were his fellow police officers, but the other woman unknown to him looked like she had dressed in a jumble sale with donations from hippies in the dark and then dragged through a hedge backwards. She was also responding to the others in the faux soppy sympathetic high-pitched voice Jamie only ever heard in social workers who worked with children or the elderly. He always felt it was particularly patronising to the elderly.

Tea in hand, he walked up to them. “Hello, DS Winter. I found him,” he said.

The three newcomers looked to the doctors, who nodded. Both doctors were white; the white haired older woman, the paediatric neuropsychiatrist, had been so gentle and patient, and was dressed in an old-fashioned cream twinset and a tweed skirt, the style he remembered his grandmother wearing while she still worked, when he had been small; the younger, ginger haired doctor, was in blue scrubs, and very brisk, but practical, and seemed impatient with the slowness of everything having to be relayed over the open phone speaker with a translator at the other end, unable to see to what part of the body they referred to, and so on. He felt she had not worked outside Midsomer, and had little in the way of multicultural interaction.  
“We were just giving the team our medical reports,” Dr. Portland, the neuropsychiatrist explained. “Might I continue, we’ll send you written reports, sergeant, of course.”

Jamie nodded.

“As I was saying, I estimate him to be 11 to 13 at the most, he seems quite unaware of his age, with possible learning or developmental difficulties and would guess his intelligence to be at a much lower level, 8 or 9, but it is obvious he has complex post-traumatic stress disorder. He has been suffering from trauma and abuse for years. Physically and mentally.”

“No sign of any other?” the male officer asked.

“I’ve only done a prelim examine, so cannot say for certainty, but would say no,” Dr Green replied.

“His trust and bonding with DS Winter also would indicate probably not, too,” Portland added.

“So, how do we proceed?” the woman officer asked.

“Well, I want him in for observations and investigations for at least another three days, but maybe longer, I leave that to his social worker. At the very least we must get his infections treated before they develop on to even worst; he’s on the verge of pneumonia as it is. He is exceedingly sick, very probably something chronic or acute beyond the infections in his lungs and kidneys. I think that is why he was dumped. We’re very lucky indeed he was dumped alive,” Dr Green replied.

“Yes,” all three officers, including, Jamie replied. He imagined, like him, they were remembering the bodies of trafficked or abused children they had fished out of rivers too.

“I need to find him somewhere safe – the list of foreign language speaking foster parents in Midsomer is small, and we don’t want him moving out of this constabulary, Inspector Barnaby made that clear, and I do agree with him,” the social worker added.

“Chief Inspector,” Jamie corrected.

“Sorry, Chief Inspector. Is there a difference?”

“About 400 a month,” the woman officer replied dryly.

The social worker looked confused for a moment, as if she knew there was a joke she was missing, but was used to that, and said quickly, “Okay,” before going on. “Anyway, Chinh can remain here for now, while I find him somewhere to stay during your investigation. I need to set him up a Team Around the Child asap, which will be us six for now, but I will be finding him an immigration lawyer, and of course when found, his foster parents will a part of the team.”

“And any specialists he needs,” Green added.

“Anyway, I suggest you go and prepare him for this meeting, then the officers will come and interview him, and after than I will introduce myself, with DS Jing translating.”

“You’re Vietnamese?” Winter asked.

“Fifth generation British Chinese, actually. I have a degree in languages, I speak five Asian languages, Russian, Polish, Spanish and Arabic,” she replied, sounding defensive and offended.

“Sorry,” Jamie said quickly, feeling ashamed. He added, impressed. “Wow! That’s a lot! Far more than I speak.”

You speak another language?” she asked dryly, as if she expected little from white officers.

Jamie smiled awkwardly, “Apart from a little French and German, nothing living. Midcombe Royal Grammar boy here. I did learn a little Punjabi and Bengali, when I was working in Perivale though, but not much beyond hello, and what is your name, that kind of thing. And I learnt what pig and sheep and dog are in Vietnamese an hour ago,” he added, smiling more genuinely.

Jing thawed a little to smile back. “He feels safe with you, I hope that will be invaluable.”

“If he knew where he had been held, they wouldn’t have dumped him alive,” the other officer added.

“I know,” Jing replied, “but we will just have to see what we can get out of him.”

“You won’t get everything straight off, if anything at all,” Dr Portland interrupted.

“I’m aware this will be a long process. But who knows how many more people – children! - have been trafficked and are being held where he was,” Jing snapped passionately.

“We will get something, slowly,” her partner added. “Miah,” he added, holding out a hand to Jamie. “DS Ahmed Miah.”

Jamie shook hands. A firm handshake.

“And I’m Debs Mernissi,” added the social worker, holding out her hand too. Jamie shook it, more like holding a limp lettuce than a hand, it felt of dry leaves. Her surname was a surprise, she looked very much a dishevelled English rose with her pale brown thatch of unbrushed hair, green eyes and freckles across her white narrow nose and pink cheeks.

“We need to go,” Portland said, looking at Green as she anxiously looked at her pager. “We’ll reconvene in the conference room off the main entrance at 1800, okay?”

*

It was Tuesday morning before Winter got back to his desk in CID at Causton Police Station, as Barnaby could not let him stay with Chinh full time, during the investigation. He had stayed again, helping him cope with having a shower, and staying until he slept, halfway through the night shift, when the nurse who spoke Vietnamese had helped him get away from the half conscious Chinh holding his hand. Jamie had then managed to get about three or four hours sleep. He knew getting involved personally was a stupid thing to do, but it was hard, having found the boy, and his open trust of him considering all he had been through. He would get an update on how things were going for and with Chinh with the first TAC, He would just have to hope murder would not get in his way and prevent him from attending.


	4. Abandoned baby

On the eastern edge of Causton, on the junction with the end of the High Street with the two A-roads leading into the town, forming an almost ring road, opposite the new out of town Tescos, stood the Catholic church of the town. Once, it had been the end of a row of Victorian terraces, and had built in the 1850s, following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the Roman Catholic Charities Act of 1832, as were so many Catholic Churches and Cathedrals throughout the country. It had been built in the bold, confident style of the mid nineteenth century, before mock Gothic began to take over church building. It stood on a small promontory, once proudly overlooking the cottages of the mostly Irish immigrants, and now overlooking roads, roundabouts, and a smallish Tesco’s with its small carpark, the church’s own carpark further up the hillock, behind its imposing red brick frontage with three of its five curved faces overlooking it, its domed roof shining in the sunlight. Without a car, it was not an easy place to visit now, in the early twenty first century, whereas once its congregation would have walked from houses long since bulldozed to make way for twentieth century temples of shopping – the old retrofitted shopping precinct sat behind it, along with new ‘old look’ lanes full of antique shops and hipster eateries, as so many places were in Midsomer these days, more made for tourists and City weekenders than locals, of any and no religion.

Father Jack MacDuff left his battered little red mini and walked down the slope of the carpark, jingling the keys in his hand. He was early for the mothering service and baby and toddler club activity and lunch, but he wanted to have a good time to pray, the latest killings in the county were playing on his mind. The sunshine did lift his mood a little, it was a little blessing from God among all the rain, hail, and wind of the recent seasonal storms.

He almost missed the baby: it was so unexpected. Like many churches, they had recently added, or re-added as such things existed in the Victorian age, a baby box. A tiny snuffle, it certainly was not a wail, managed to attract his attention, he was later to thank God for a lull in the traffic roar so that he heard it at all, drew his attention as he unlocked the main doors to the Church.

Jack lifted the tiny scrap of humanity out of the box, and rushed to unlock the inner doors and get into the warmth of the kitchen of the church hall, putting on the gas rings immediately to add warmth faster than the central heating would, and put on a kettle, thinking to give the wee mite a bit of sugared water. Once in the warm, kettle boiling and flames flickering, he dialled 999. Once he knew a paramedic and a police officer were on the way, he called the police officer he had met when he had had to deal with the unfortunate sad woman who had been forced into dreadful actions last year – DS Winter.

*

Jamie answered immediately, and hearing the situation, promised to come and help the kind priest with dealing with the paramedics and uniformed officer.

“Abandoned newborn,” he said to Barnaby, across the office.

His boss looked up with a frown, “Oh dear. Let me know if a DCI presence is required.”

“Shouldn’t think so Sir,” he replied, and grabbed his coat.

“You go on then Winter, leave me with these aggravated burglaries,” Barnaby said bitterly.

Jamie grinned. “Glad to Sir.” They were getting nowhere, and so many people injured all over the county and Oxfordshire too.

*

He arrived just as a paramedic was taking the baby from the first attender bike paramedic and climbing into the back of the ambulance. All he could see was the baby was white, with patchy dark hair, and very tiny. It was wrapped in the tiniest silver space blanket he had ever seen. The driver jumped into the ambulance and it pulled away, the blue lights flashing up against the soft yellow autumn sunlight, the wail flying back as the ambulance pulled out of the church drive and hit the main road, the sound distorting with the Doppler effect as it sped away very fast indeed.

“Is the baby okay?” he asked the paramedic, showing his warrant card.

“Newborn, probably two or three hours old, maybe five at the most. Very tiny, possibly early, but also possibly a very young mother. Cold, on the verge of hyperthermia, dehydrated, umbilical cord still attached, I don’t think it was cut from the mother very safely or expertly. We’re very worried about the mother. The baby was wrapped in this.” The paramedic handed him a red bundle, just as he received a call on his radio about an RTC and heart attack on the Mallow Road. He looked at Winter, chewing his lip. Winter nodded and the paramedic jumped onto his bike, and very soon a second lot of blue lights and wailing filled the air.

Jamie folded the red woollen item over. It was a cardigan, a V-necked buttoned cardigan, the kind worn by some girls with a school uniform. It even had a name sewn inside – Paulina Kowalska.

“That looks like part of the St Teresa’s Girls School uniform,” Father Jack said, coming up to him.

Jamie saw that along with the priest, a young woman constable was left, she had been taking Father Jack’s statement, and was standing awkwardly.

“Constable?” Winter called her over.

“Nicolls, Sir.”

“I’d like you to come with me. You can ring St Teresa’s as we drive, say nothing but ask is she’s in school.”

“Of course, Sir.” The young probationer’s eyes were shining with excitement, this was possibly the most excitement she had had since she left training college, Winter thought, _Oh, to be so young._ Although when did he get to think he was old?

*

“Nuns are bloody terrifying, Sir,” Nicolls muttered as they entered the school and were ushered into the head teacher’s office by a young novice and school secretary.

“Can I ask what this is about?” the Mother Superior demanded.

“No. Sorry. We are a little concerned for the well-being of one of your pupils. I just need to talk to Paulina Kolwaska.”

With a little bit of a sniff, the Mother Superior left Winter and Nicolls alone with her in her office. The girl looked frankly terrified. She fiddled with her pen in her hand, looking down at the floor and her feet. She wore a white blouse and tartan pleated skirt over white socks, but had no cardigan.

“Do you know why we are here?” Jamie asked gently.

The girl gave no response at all.

“You are not in trouble, we just need to see that you are okay, and properly looked after.”

She gave a tiny swallowed cry, but little else.

“We found your cardigan Paulina, I think you know where.”

Pauline nodded slightly.

“You need medical attention sweetie: you are not in trouble. We won’t say a word to the Mother Superior or anyone else yet,” Nicolls said softly.

“I’m alright,” Pauline muttered.

“You might think so, but believe me, your body has been through a lot, you do need a doctor to look after all, you need all sorts of help a midwife should…” Nicolls went on, gently but firmly, trying to sound an expert. Winter was glad, a woman would sound more convincing, even if she had no children. But maybe Nicolls did, although she looked twenty if a day, and even a week into her probation, she’d have already done a year or two at college, so it seemed unlikely a person could manage motherhood and police training.

“It’s not me. It’s Siobhan, my friend,” Paulina whispered, still not looking up.

“Where is she?” Nicolls asked, with a slight glance to Winter to check she could carry on with the questioning.

“With the school nurse. We said she had her period and bad cramps. She’s in the sick room.”

Winter stood up and held out his hand. “Show me.” Paulina stood, and quietly, still looking down, took the police officer’s hand, as the woman officer in the uniform nodded at her reassuringly. She was only thirteen. “Nicolls, tell the Head – Nun – whatever – both girls are witnesses to a crime and they are coming with me to give a statement, tell her nothing else and tell her we will have the parents meet us at the station. Take no arguments and meet me at the car.”

“Yes Sir.”

Wide-eyed, Paulina led Winter to the sickroom and the school nurse’s office. “She didn’t know,” she whispered once they were in the white and green painted brick corridor of the 1930s school building. “She really thought she was having a bad period coz she hadn’t had them for ages. She doesn’t have a boyfriend; I don’t know how this happened? Do you think it’s immaculate like Our Lady?”

Winter thought no such thing, he had other, darker, and more disturbing, theories, given the girls age. Until he got to the school and found he wanted a Year 7 child, he had had theories about a Year 11 teenager who had got pregnant, but coming from a strict religious family had ignored it all in a panic, but that theory had someone been shelved now, given the mother’s age.

Winter went straight into the nurse’s office, warrant card in hand, and insisted Siobhan come with him to make a statement. The school nurse, a woman who looked straight out of an interwar children’s novel idea of a school nurse – all plump and short with curled hair and sensible shoes, the only deference to the times was the fact she was in white scrubs and not an old fashioned nurse’s uniform and hat or tweeds – eyes went wide with shock, no doubt, since he was Midsomer MCU DS, imagining the poor girls witnessing a murder.

With a solicitous hand on each girls’ shoulder, he ushered them out of the main doors, forbidden to students, and towards his car.

“People will have to know, but we will leave that to your parents, I think. We need to get you to hospital, urgently,” he said to Siobhan. “I don’t need to know anything about what happened until we know you will be okay.” As he spoke, he could see blood was leaking from whatever pad she was wearing, and blood was running out of the girl between her legs. Inwardly, he sighed, it would take a lot of work to get the blood out of the car. Jamie felt awful for even thinking such a thing as Siobhan fainted. He caught her and carried her the last few metres to the car.

Nicolls met him at the car, and they got the girl in the back with her, and put Paulina in the front with Winter. Aware they were being watched, he waited until the had turned the corner from the school gates and were hidden by bushes, before he put on the blue lights, and delayed the siren for a few moments.

With lights and siren, Winter hit over a 100 miles an hour, and they arrived at Causton Maternity, as Nicolls was told to take her as she radioed the shout in, within four minutes.

They were met by nurses and midwives with a stretcher, and she was rushed off into surgery immediately. They later found out not all the placenta had come away and she was lucky to be alive.

“Now, Paulina,” Winter said, after they had been given a side room to use and Nicolls had fetched tea for all three of them, with biscuits for the girl, “you had better tell me what happened?”

It was a frightening and bewildering story. Both girls came from the other side of the county, from Cooper’s Hill, but being the only girls Catholic school in the county, they were bused in from all over. The Coopers Hill – Binwell – Deverall bus got into school early, and the journey was fifty minutes long, and all through the journey poor Siobhan had been getting what she thought were bad time of the month cramps, every few moments. They were coming and going, getting closer and closer as they got into school.

“She only started for the first time at Christmas, then they stopped again, but my Mum said that can happen, her Mum is dead, and her Gran is awful strict and old fashioned, she can’t ask her. What will happen to her? Her Gran will kill her for getting in the family way. But it must be from God, she has never even kissed a boy, she’s more innocent and stupid than me, and I’m like a baby, all the girls in our year say so…”

“We’ll worry about that in a while, okay Paulina? How did the baby get at the church?”

“I remember my Dad saying about the baby box – they have them in Poland, and they put one in coz they were saying we Polish girls get pregnant and dump babies, which I thought was racist! Which is why I remembered, it made me angry! Anyway, I thought the baby would be okay.”

“Did you take the baby there?”

“Yes, I left Siobhan in the New Wing toilets – that’s where the baby was born! She could hardly walk when we got off the bus, and the other girls on the bus were laughing at her.”

“But how?”

“I walked. Took me half an hour.”

“Did no one see you?” Nicolls asked, surprised.

“No, well, an old lady walking a spaniel, it tried to sniff me, but she pulled it away and said sorry. Took me an hour til I got back, and lessons had started. I took Siobhan to the nurse and we just said she had her period, she was bleeding anyway – they don’t tell you that, do they? Or show that in Call the Midwife, you get a period when the baby is born. There was a lot of blood. I wiped the baby with toilet tissue.”

“Did you cut the cord?”

“I used my nail scissors from my new manicure set. I used my hand sanitiser and face wipes to try to clean it as best I could. Sorry. Is the baby alright?”

*

By the time Paulina’s parents had arrived, and Siobhan’s father and grandmother, the duty social worker has also arrived. Once he had taken Paulina’s statement, Winter had sent Nicolls back to her beat.

“Sergeant Winter!” a voice called. He turned, and saw Debs Mernissi walking up to him.

“Hello Debs, are you here for Siobhan Reilly?”

“And baby Reilly. I would have been here sooner, but I was going through notes. Five calls from neighbours over the last two years, since the mother died, none followed up apart from a phone call and a satisfactory – or seeming so – explanation. Eight kids, three older boys, well, young men, the oldest son, some trouble with the law, all three. Grandmother is supposed to look after them, but she’s in her eighties, but, well, obviously the people who spoke on the phone were happy.”

“What were the calls about?”

“Shouting, noises, younger kids knocking on neighbours’ doors saying they were hungry.”

“What were the older brothers arrested for? Were they charged?”

“I don’t know Jamie.” Debs put her hand on his arm. “I’m glad it’s you. Please, check them out, and the father. Girl this age, pregnant and not knowing, at best it is statuary rape, and she thinks she consented…”

“Not from what her friend was telling me, she thinks she was a virgin. Certainly, she’s innocent in bodily matters, going from what I was told. Yes, I will look into this. Do you want this an open formal child abuse case? I’d have to pass that on to the team in High Midcombe or Oxford.”

“Please, as a favour, can you investigate?” she squeezed his arm tightly.

Jamie nodded. “I’ll open the investigation. Let me know what happens with the baby and her, please.”

“Of course, if you are the investigating officer, we’ll need you in the Kingfisher team.”

Jamie nodded. “Thank you. I’m going to get myself a cup of tea, do you want one?”

“I have to talk to the midwife and surgeon, then the family, before I see the girl. No time. Thanks for the thought. Chinh is still here, he’d love you to pop in and say hi, if you have time.”

Jamie smiled awkwardly. “I will.”

Church location:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For hospital location for this and previous chapter, you can go here if you like
> 
> http://midsomermurders.org/amershamloc3.htm
> 
> I spent a very unhappy 10 days in here, including my 18th birthday...


	5. Another Abduction (Oxfordshire police liaison)

Chief Inspector Barnaby put down the phone on his desk and looked up.

“Winter,” he called across the office, where Winter was going through the scant evidence and witness statements to the spate of burglaries of grand old houses and modern rich huge estates in the county.

“Sir?”

“Job for you. That was the Chief Superintendent of Oxford CID. They have a vehicle and possible person of interest in a child abduction. Fifteen year old girl, special needs, vulnerable. The case is up on the PNC as Operation Mackintosh, and you will liaise with a DI Hathaway.”

“What do they need me to do Sir?”

“Find the flagged van, and keep an eye on it. Let DI Hathaway know, and do whatever he wants once you found it. Probably best start with the county commercial CCTV, the Traffic roadside cameras have not picked it up past Midsomer Malham turn of the A4130.”

“Of course Sir,” Winter said, turning to his monitor and tapping in the operation name and his ID number into the vast shared police network, frequently lazily referred to as the PNC or Police Network Computer, or although in reality, each station had a PNC and joined together, now with additional learning software, was the network with the clunky backronym Home Office Large Major Enquiry Service – HOLMES, or rather HOLMES 2, following its expansion and increased computing powers.

*

****

Winter picked up the van going into a large garden centre on the Midsomer Deverall – Morten Fendall Road ten minutes previously, and rushed to his car to see if he could get there before the van left again, and follow it, if that was required, or make an arrest.

The van was there as he pulled in to the large, sloping car park. He pulled up beside it, and pretended to check his phone, as he watched a man in his sixties, dressed in a tweed jacket with elbow patches and baggy checked trousers, a bow tie and a velvet waistcoat slam the back doors of the van, and then hop quite agilely into the driver’s seat and leave.

Winter let the van pull away and drive off, following the one-way system to the exit, while he drove the other way to the entrance, going obviously the wrong way, but on a quiet school day, it was not so busy – the large garden centre had both an outside adventure playground and an indoor soft play area, as well as a large pet section where children were allowed to interact with the animals, so it was popular after school and in the holidays.

He exited the garden centre at the same time, and followed the van from a distance, around the Deverell ring road and back out towards the main A road to Causton, turning down a tiny lane, and then again, and then into a farmers field. Winter continued driving, so not to arouse suspicion, turning in the main entrance to the farm a mile and a half further up – it was called Jones Farm – and back to the field, where he pulled up in a gateway the opposite side of the lane to the field, and observed.

He could see the blue van was parked outside a tiny caravan, and the field had a sign, ‘Camping and Caravans, £15 a night,’ with a mobile number underneath, the sign was splattered with mud and overgrown with brambles from the hedgerows either side. At the far end of the field he could see a wooden hut for the basic toilet and shower needs, and a stile over the fence next to it.

He got out, and tried to see if he could walk up and around the caravan undetected, but there was no cover in the field at all. Instead, he took a chance, and drove back up to the farm, to see if anyone was around.

It was going to be a long and boring afternoon, he decided, wishing he had not left his sandwiches and cake behind in his desk in the station. He pulled into the large farmyard behind a tractor and also wished he’d put his wellies back in the boot, after taking them out to clean after a rather messy incident at Badger’s Drift.

He was in luck, Farmer Jones, or Steve, as he introduced himself, was having his lunch. The wife answered the door, and showed him into the large kitchen. The older couple were only too eager to help when they heard it was in connection to a girl’s disappearance – they had heard the report that morning on the local radio - although they thought it unlikely to be their tenant who took her, odd though he maybe.

“I suspect you’ve not had a chance for lunch, have you my duck?” Mrs Jones said, as her husband was explaining how odd and weird Tel was, but a good worker for all that.

Winter shook his head, and could not believe his luck as Mrs Jones proceeded to cut thick slices of home-made bread, slather them with yellow butter and put in fat slices of beef and pickles.

“Thank you so much, but I need to get back to watch,” he said at the door, “You’ve both been so helpful,” he added, shaking the story-book farmer’s wife’s hand.

“That’s alright my lover, my nephew’s in the police, not here no more, he’ll be in Brighton now.”

He got back to the car, and drove back to the same gate, but before he tucked into his lovely lunch, he got out his phone and dialled the Oxford inspector’s number.

“Hathaway,” the Inspector answered immediately, with a rich, deep, voice.

“Sir,” Winter said. “This is DS Winter from Causton in Midsomer. Our boys picked up your flagged vehicle in Midsomer Deverell – you’d got it going down the A4130 before you lost it? We’ve picked it up in a garden centre and have an unmarked car following it,” he babbled nervously, he hated dealing with officers he did not know. Too much information? Probably? He winced inwardly, and went on, “It is currently in a field belonging to Jones Farm between Deverell, Marsh Wood, and Causton. The field is used as a campsite in the summer, but currently just one old caravan there. I discreetly spoke to the farmer, he rents the field and facilities to a Terrance Lane, who sometimes labours for him. Odd sort, he said, keeps himself to himself, drinks too much, bit violent. Has a history here for drunk and disorderly. He’s logged as your person of interest. Do you want me to approach the caravan?”

“Any sign of a girl in the van?” this mysterious Inspector Hathaway asked.

“No, just an old man in tweeds, doesn’t look like the Lane in his file, too smart. I’m keeping my distance, but I haven’t seen anything but him – no sign of any movement in the van or caravan at all,” Winter replied.

“Okay, keep me informed,” he was told. “We’ve got Terrance Lane in custody, we’re about to interview him. His brother might also be a person of interest, but he’s a Fellow of Lonsdale, so we need to tread carefully and need more evidence. I do think that is who you are watching though.”

Winter smiled to himself, oh yes, he was reading this Inspector explicitly, one had to tread carefully around the educated and privileged of Midsomer too. “Read you loud and clear, Sir,” he said, barely keeping the snark out of his voice. “So, I’ll stay here, then,” he promised, hanging up.

*

****

Two hours went by, then the man came out again, and jumped in the van. Winter started his car engine, ready to follow him, but ducked down behind the windscreen as the van pulled out of the field and into the road.

This time he only drove as far as Midsomer Deverell, and got out at the small Waitrose there. Winter parked a few spaces away, and grabbing a trolley, and putting random items in it, he followed the man around the store. He bought read made sandwiches, a prepacked iced coffee and a bottle of Merlot, along with a large bottle of cola, crisps, pink iced cupcakes with cartoon faces on them, a girl’s comic with brightly coloured ponies on it, a DVD with more of the ponies, and a stuffed pink pony toy. Curious and suspicious, Winter decided.

He hung around, near the freezers, pretending to read ice cream labels, as the man went through the check out, and then he followed him to the door, flashing his warrant card with his fingers to his lips at the security guard at the door as he abandoned his trolley. “Sorry,” he mouthed, and headed to the car.

He then followed the van all the way back to the field and caravan, and parked up diagonally opposite this time, in a passing space. He’d not seen a vehicle in the two plus hours he’d been there, so he assumed it would be all right. There was a nice gap in the hedge he could look through.

He got out his phone and dialled the Oxfordshire SIO.

****

“Hathaway,” he answered, a few rings in this time.

“Winter here Sir. He left a while ago, I managed to follow him to Midsomer Deverell’s Waitrose and all around it and back to the caravan, still no sighting Sir, but among his shopping he bought cupcakes, crisps, cola, a soft toy, and a child’s cartoon DVD. Do you want us to move in Sir?”

There were a few moments pause, before the Inspector said, “No, wait, get the uniforms nearby, out of sight but wait for me. I’m on my way. 10 minutes at the most.”

Winter did up his seatbelt, in case he needed to drive in a hurry, and called the station to get some cars up to Jones’s Farm’s yard, giving them strict instructions to drive in from the other lane which approached the farmhouse, barns and yard, then phoned Mrs Jones to let her know not to worry when a few marked police cars arrived. After that he pinpointed the farm on Google Earth, and pinged the location to DI Hathaway’s car. He then made his way to the farm himself.

*

It was under ten minutes from when Winter had called the Oxfordshire Inspector to when a black Jag pulled up with lights and sirens, parking at an angle behind the patrol cars and Winter’s. A tall, skinny man with a short blond hair and a black skinny suit climbed out and approached him.

“Inspector Hathaway?” Winter checked.

“M’m,” the Inspector confirmed, and asked, “Sergeant Winter?”

“Yup,” Winter replied, and gestured towards the edge of the farmyard and a footpath through the woods to the campsite field. “This way Sir.” He turned to the uniformed sergeant, “Wait Charlie. I’ll ping you as soon as we need you,” he ordered.

“Right you are Jamie,” Charlie answered, with a thumbs up.

“Jamie?” the Inspector asked curiously, as they walked through a tiny path from the yard, and over a style and through a wooded area.

“That’s my name,” Winter agreed, startled.

“James,” the inspector said, pointing to himself.

“Ah,” _snap,_ thought Jamie. He said thoughtfully, not liking being called ‘James’, “No one calls me James, not since I was a child – I knew when I’d done something wrong if my mother used it.” Even today, if someone said James sharply, he would flinch and feel guilty.

“I prefer James,” said the inspector. “Old boss called me Jim for a while, hated that. My family used to call me Jamie, but that’s not happy times.” He snorted, and pinched his nose. The tension in his shoulders suggested to Jamie that this was not a good case for this inspector to be in charge of. He was getting good at reading the subtext, Barnaby never shared his feelings, unless he went to Sarah, and she pushed.

“You look like a James, doubt I do,” Winter said, for something to say. Then asked, as they were nearly at the caravan, “Will you knock Sir?”

“Yes,” Hathaway said, striding the last few metres, and banging on the touring van’s only small door loudly.

Professor Lane opened the door nervously. “Yes?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“Detective Inspector Hathaway of Oxfordshire Police,” Hathaway said, showing his warrant card. “This is Detective Sergeant Winter of Midsomer Constabulary. May we come in?”

“Why?” he asked, sounding terrified.

“I think you know, Professor,” Inspector Hathaway said, as gently as Winter would expect Chief Inspector Barnaby to be.

“Sorry,” Lane said, standing aside. “Sorry.”

Hathaway pushed past him; aware Winter was behind him. “Miranda?” he called. “Miranda? Are you here? It’s the police?”

“Mumph!” came a reply _._

Hathaway rushed to the back section of the caravan, indicating that Winter deal with the offender.

“Wallace Lane, I am arresting you on suspicion of kidnap, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something when questioned that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

Professor Lane sank into the sofa, and began to mumble, “I’m sorry, so sorry, I wasn’t in my right mind – I’m not in my right mind. I thought she was my daughter. I knew she wasn’t my daughter, but I thought... Sorry sorry sorry sorry.” He began to cry. “I never meant to frighten or hurt her…”

While Lane mumbled on, sobbing, Winter could hear Hathaway talking to Miranda Jones, having to untie her by the sounds of things, and reassure her. He seemed to be able to deal with her very well indeed, checking she was unhurt, or not interfered with in anyway. Deciding that Lane needed no cuffs, nor would try to escape – he would not get far if he did – he went to check in the inspector and the girl, after standing down two of the uniform cars.

As he got to the back of the caravan, she was asking after a toy as if were still real to her, as if she were much younger, as he got to the door. Hathaway seemed to know just how to answer,

“My sergeant found your Pinkie Pie, I promise. She’d helping our forensic officers, but she can get her back from the lab and take her to your Mum, I’ll tell her to in a minute.”

“Is that not your sergeant?” she asked, looking past Hathaway, at him.

“He just borrowed me from Midsomer, I belong to another Inspector,” Winter said, smiling. “Sorry to interrupt, Sir, but I’ve stood down the cars, apart from one. I didn’t know if you wanted us to transport him to Oxford?” he checked.

“Sounds good,” Hathaway said, then asked the girl, “Miranda, are you happy to come with me, and I’ll drive you home. Look, let me show you my warrant card, Winter can show you his, and in a minute, a police car will come around to take the man who took you away.”

Miranda stood up, and looked at the toy pony. “What do I do with her?” she asked, looking confused. Winter realised he had been right in thinking she was younger than her years. He took out his warrant card and let the girl look at it, as well as Hathaway’s. The Inspector seemed to cope with answering her question well enough to satisfy the girl.

She followed the two police officers, hugging the new toy she had been concerned about, and looked at the man who had dragged her into the blue van and kept her in this cold caravan, feeding her junk food and telling her she was his daughter, apart from when he got angry, mostly with himself. Once, when he started ranting at himself, and twisting his hands, she had tried to run away; but they were much further from a proper road than she realised, and he found her when she twisted her ankle in a rabbit hole. She supposed she would have to tell everything to these policemen, but she just wanted her Mum and home.

He looked up at her, he was sitting on the tiny sofa, and began to say, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” over and over. “I was not in my right mind. I just thought…” he stood up and then clutched his head and collapsed. Hathaway immediately got down to him and held his head.

“Get Miranda to my car and call an ambulance,” he ordered. “He has a brain tumour, cancerous.”

“Come on Miranda, sweetie,” Winter said, talking her hand, and gently pulling her out of the caravan, dialling control with his other hand.

“Sit rep. Operation Mackintosh. Suspect down. Ambulance required.”

“Do you require further assistance?”

“No. It’s his brain tumour I think, no one else down. Victim recovered and safe.”

“Ambulance dispatched now to Jones farm at your logged coordinates. Is this correct?”

Winter didn’t think that coming through the woods would make much difference, so said yes, and hung up. He looked down to see Miranda watching him, listening.

“Where are we?” she asked, as he got off the phone, looking about the field.

“Midsomer, near Midsomer Deverell. We’re on Mr Jones’ farm, my and Inspector Hathaway’s cars are parked in his yard. It’s this way, to that wooden building, over a stile and through that wood. Can you walk that far, not too stiff after being tied up and sat down for hours?”

Miranda looked confused for a moment, then down at her legs. She let go of his hand, jumped up and down, did a few star jumps, then took hold of his hand again. “I’m okay now. What’s your name?”

“Detective Sergeant Winter.”

She laughed, “No, your name.”

“Jamie.”

“That’s almost the same as the Inspector’s name.” She began to skip, swinging Jamie’s hand.

“Yes, it is,” agreed Jamie.

“He looked like an Inspector though, but can I call you Jamie?”

“If you like. Are you hungry? Mrs Jones made me a mean sandwich earlier, I am sure she would be happy to do the same.”

“What did you have?”

“Roast beef.”

“Oh. But I’m a vegetarian. That man – he didn’t know what to give me! He panicked!”

“Do you eat cheese, or egg?”

“Oh yes, I’m not a vegan. My Mum’s friend is, but that seems too hard, don’t you think?”

“I think this is a dairy farm,” Jamie said, remembering he had noticed without realising the milking sheds.

He helped her over the style, or rather, held the toy while she climbed over, and she took his hand again as they walked through the woods. She suddenly squeezed it.

“Is Mum cross?”

“No, of course not, she’s been very worried and frightened. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I went to play on the swings instead of getting straight on the bus. She tells me to always get the bus straight away.”

“That doesn’t make it your fault, Miranda.”

“Is it his fault though, or is it the cancer thing in his head? Did that make him do it?”

“I don’t know,” Jamie replied, “but he is a very sick man, so if you can understand he didn’t mean to hurt you, that is best for you too. Did he hurt you, or do anything to make you feel uncomfortable?”

“Well, he kept showing me pictures or a lady and telling me she was my Mum. My Mum isn’t black, my Dad is. I suppose it would be the other way around in his head. That made me uncomfortable. And being tied up hurt a bit, but that was my fault for running away.”

“That is not your fault Miranda, that was a very brave and strong thing to do, to try to run away,” Winter found he was talking to her as if she were 5 not 15, but she seemed so young and naïve. He wasn’t sure if this was the way to go or not, he was yet to do his autism awareness course. Every time he was booked on it, there was another spate of killings in one village or another.

“I did try to be brave,” she said, then squeezed his hand again as she saw the police car and a woman and man standing around. She stopped suddenly, and put her hands over her ears, and then Winter heard it too, the wail of an ambulance.

He went over to Mrs Jones.

“Oh, it’s wonderful to see you safe, my duck.”

“Miranda hasn’t eaten much, Mrs Jones. Do you think you could make her one of your awesome sandwiches? She’s vegetarian. The inspector wants her waiting in his car.”

“That’s the Jag, isn’t it? You come with me, my dear, and I’ll make you a cheese and pickle sandwich, all made by me.” She put her arm around Miranda’s shoulders, and led her off to the farmhouse, but Winter thought that would be fine, there were still uniformed officers about, and if he guessed correctly, she was Detective Inspector Ben Jones’ auntie.

“You made the bread? And the pickle?” Miranda was checking.

“And the butter and cheese, my dear.”

“You made the butter and cheese?!” he heard her exclaim before he went to the paramedic and driver climbing out of their ambulance cabin.

“This way,” he called, waving.

They all jogged thought the woodland path and across the field, the paramedic carrying a heavy pack.

Hathaway had put Lane in the recovery position, and a cushion under his head, and met the paramedic at the caravan door, and began to relate the situation, and also that he had an inoperable brain tumour. Hathaway left the paramedic to it, and Winter could hear him trying to get the man to respond, while checking for vitals and conducting obs. He called to his driver and told her to bring the ambulance to the caravan, and so she set off at a sprint back to the farmyard. Meanwhile, Hathaway came up to Winter,

“Stay with him, he was your collar. Keep me informed. I will get the girl back to her mother now.” He climbed up the caravan step in one long-legged stride, and said through the door to the paramedic, “Sergeant Winter will go with you and stay with your patient, he is also our offender, under arrest for kidnap.”

“Sure,” Winter heard the paramedic say, “but he is going nowhere fast, I’m only 50% certain he’ll make it to hospital.”

As Causton General had a small minor injuries, and no specialist neurology, most Midsomer patients were often treated in Oxford, especially to the north of the county, so Winter was not surprised when the ambulance just headed out for the A4130 and hit the blues and twos and belted up the main road to the Oxford ring road within minutes.

The paramedic got an IV saline line into Lane, as his blood pressure was crashing, and kept the blood saturation monitor on his finger, ECG of his chest, but apart from that, just sat monitoring. He had muttered to Winter as he set up the ECG that really he needed an EEG, but ambulances did not have them, paramedics not the training to use them, which was frustrating in cases like this.

Suddenly he stirred.

“Alright Sir, you are in an ambulance. You collapsed. Can you tell me your name?” the paramedic said gently, holding his hand in his blue gloved one.

“Wallace Lane. Professor Wallace Lane. Wal. Is the police officer here? He whispered, struggling to speak, as if he was having to search for every word.

“I’m here,” Winter said.

“I’m sorry. Tell the mother. Sorry. Was not thinking. Was dreaming. What if I had proposed? Would had have little girl like her. If only.”

“Try to save your breath, Sir.”

“Not going to make… can feel. Sorry. Tell them. Tel did not know. Brother. Leant van for walking in country. Did not know. Tell him sorry. Tell them he did not know I… in his home. Say he have flat now… not know, Tel not know, sorry, not daughter, wanted… could have…” he slipped back into unconsciousness.

As the ambulance pulled into Major Trauma at the John Radcliffe, Lane began to seize, then crash, and he was taken away on a bed surrounded by a flurry of staff, the ambulance paramedic following, giving a report. Winter followed to resuss, but the door was slammed in his face.

Another member of staff, doctor, nurse, other - Winter did not know what colour green or blue scrubs meant what - demanded if he was a relative.

“No, the arresting officer, he kidnapped a girl,” Winter explained, showing his warrant card.

“Okay, sit there,” she said, pointing to a seat against the opposite wall.

Winter nodded, and said thank you, but she was already gone.

He sat for nearly an hour, before another staff member came up. “You’re the police officer?”

“Sergeant Winter, yes.”

“I’m Dr. Radley, consultant neurosurgeon. Professor Lane was my patient. You can follow if you like, get a uniformed officer if you want, but we are transferring him to a quiet side ward two floor above, in neurology – it’s unlikely he will survive the night, much less wake up.” She sounded weary.

“Okay, I’ll let the Senior Officer in charge know, and we may or may not send an officer. He might tell me to stay.”

“Level 3, Ward 7, West Wing. Go get yourself a coffee sergeant, he really isn’t going to cause any issue.”

“Would you say that the tumour distorted his sense of reality, and would explain why a man who had no record, a man who seems to have lived a very quite life in college, would suddenly kidnap a girl?”

“I would say – yes, undoubtedly. Anyway, he won’t last the night, so he’ll save the tax payer the cost of a trial, anyway. Let your senior officer in charge know that.”

Winter nodded, and began to walk away.

“There is also a restaurant on Level 3, and you can nip through that door, sergeant, it will take you straight to the main lifts. You’ll have to come down to 2, follow the signs and take the lifts up to Children’s Hospital, cut through, to get to Neurology Wards, but you look like you need a coffee, so I’ll see you there. I need to get him stabilized for the porter to move him,” she called to his retreating back more kindly.

“Thank you,” he said.

Once he was in the lift, he updated the situation to HOLMES and sent Hathaway a lot of requisitions for decisions. By the time he was sitting in a large area called On Three with a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, Hathaway had got back to him on the PNC and personally.

“Stand down. No point sending uniform. Get to his Ward and request they inform me when he has passed.”

He also saw he had actioned his own sergeant’s, Maddox, request to, to release the man’s brother with no charge, and to inform him of the situation.

A personal message also arrived on his job phone, “Thank you Jamie. Good job today. I look forward to working with you again.”

Jamie was touched, and returned the thanks, adding it was a joy to rescue an abducted girl who had not been abused or find her dead. His phone pinged again, but it was not Hathaway, it was Barnaby.

“Come tell me all about your liaison with Oxfordshire asap. Sarah says there is lasagna and to bring a bottle of red.”

Winter smiled, and replied, “On my way now Sir.”


	6. Arson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Brexit Hate Crime

Unless it was murder, or in some case a serious violent crime, or connected to the murder(s) under investigation, Winter’s boss did not stir from the office, preferring any CID input to be handled by his sergeant, if a senior officer was required. Mostly, of course, the DCs who came and went in Causton’s CID handled all the usual non murder crimes, since the murder rate was so high for a rural, wealthy, area of the country, and the murder team seem to exist of the two officers. Of course, Winter delegated what he could to the detective constables, although being such a small constabulary, they were usually busy with all the theft of farm vehicles, cattle rustling, and cannabis farms, to say nothing of all kinds of illegal gambling and fighting which the poorer Midsomer folks indulged in, whilst the wealthy slaughtered each other in strange and violent ways.

Sometimes normal uniform, and occasionally traffic, and today, the fire investigation officer, requested a senior CID presence. It was to the utter shame of the small constabulary that there was no sexual crimes unit, no Sapphire Unit or safe house apart from one in High Midcombe, Normally for victims of sexual violence in the north of the county, they had an arrangement with Oxfordshire Police, as Oxford was only a 20 minute drive from Causton, so victims were taken there for evidence and statements. Usually that too, Barnaby left to him and a woman constable, as currently there was not a single woman DC in Causton. 

Sometimes it was like the dark ages.

It certainly felt like the dark ages as Winter pulled up behind the fire tenders, ambulance and patrol cars. Something from the 1970s, something he had studied for his social sciences degree.

A blond officer and a dark-haired white man in the jacket and trousers of a firefighter who had not been at the sharp end of the fire, so he took to be the fire investigations officer, walked up to him as he climbed out of the car.

“Sir. PC Bates. I attended first with the fire tender. Place was ablaze. This is Senior Fire Officer, Josh Stevens, he wanted you called.”

“Winter,” Winter said, offering his hand.

Stevens shook it briefly. “Bad business. We’re still trying to damp it down. The two kids have gone to hospital already, they are trying to get the grandmother stable enough to travel. Through here,” he said, walking through the various emergency vehicles which were crowding out the entire narrow street of this Victorian section of Causton, with its densely packed terraces once for the workers of the breweries and meat packing and furniture factories that the town had once relied on, rather than wealthy weekenders and tourism. Those small terraces now would set one back a good £300,000 mortgage. Although many, of course, belonged to private landlords, who charged four times that a month in rent. Students from Midsomer University crammed into some in house shares, and others contained two wage families dependant on food boxes or families who shared the mortgage between then, as did many of the newer Euro immigrants. There were so many new incomers on these streets that this shop had emerged, just as shops had sprung up in High Midcombe when his mother had been young four or five decades previously for Indian subcontinent people come to work in the furniture factories, and before that, in his grandmother’s day, it had been the Jewish people fleeing antisemitism in the 1930s, along with others looking for a break either from fascism or the Great Depression. Hard now to imagine, all the factories that once had graced his hometown, they were all gone now. Apparently, when Victoria had come to lay flowers on the grave of her favourite Prime Minister, there had been an arch of chairs built at the rail station to welcome her, so famous was the town once for its Windsor chairs.

Winter felt introspective, because he couldn’t believe it, if you told him he would be investigating a violent hate crime a couple of years ago, he would have scoffed. He was born into and grew up in a multicultural country which has little or no racial tension since he mother has been young, and the rest of the county was so rural that the kind of urban diversity had been unheard of until recently.

He turned to look at the increasing crowd gathering at the first police tape as Bates lifted the inner cordon tape between the vehicles and the actual crime scene. The air this close was full of thick smoke and the smell of burned flesh, spices, and wheat, an odd combination, but then this had been a Polski Sklep which had been fire bombed, with customers inside, and the proprietor’s family upstairs. It was a miracle no one was, as far as he was aware, too seriously injured. The smell of the charred flesh, which was making bile rise in Winter’s throat, presumably came for the deli section of the shop – all the sausages and cured meats. The only injuries had been the smoke inhalation for the children and their grandmother upstairs, and a few superficial burns the owners and their two customers.

“Get rid of those rubberneckers, Bates,” Winter decided.

“Sir.”

He knew his fellow officers in uniform would have taken all the statements, and once they were logged, he could look at them at his leisure at his desk, and Stevens needed to walk him through the scene of crime.

He followed the fire officer in through the broken front of the once end terrace house converted into a small corner shop, crunching over broken, blackened glass. The front of the shop was blown out, the back still standing, with shelves sloping, jars of intact pickles bizarrely gathered together at the end of one shelf which was tipped downwards, packets of something too blackened to read above them.

“This is where we think the incendiary device landed,” Stevens said.

“Did anyone see what was happening?”

“Two men at the check-out, here, back to the window and the door, being served by the woman, husband was out back, fetching stock. She said she thought maybe it was like a brick, but it all happened so fast. The window was full of posters and stock and the bottom half painted green with their logo on it, so visibility was poor. She went to hospital with her kids. Bates told me an officer went with the, and will take her statement.”

“But the kids, they’ll be okay?”

“Smoke inhalation can be series, but the father got them out fast, despite them being small. I’m more worried about the grandmother, as the ambulance still hasn’t moved yet, they were stabilising her.”

As he spoke the broken shop frontage was filled with flashing blue lights just before the mournful, heart piecing, wail of the ambulance began.

“There she goes,” Stevens said.

“Walk me through every bit of evidence you have, then I’ll go back and process everything that the uniform has been logged. You’ll get me everything in writing asap, too, if we’re looking at potential murder, or a least manslaughter. I want to hit the ground running with this.”

“Sure.” Stevens shook his head. “I don’t know what the world is coming too. Wife’s work colleague was attacked the other night in Slough – Slough! – for being in a hijab. My Great Grandad, he was one of the few, he flew spitfires in the Blitz, right alongside Polish officers.”

“Where I grew up, I knew children who went to the local Polish club, their grandparents came over with the Polish Free Army, and stayed afterwards as they didn’t want to go back to Soviet controlled Poland any more than the Nazi occupied one they left!”

“You local then? Midsomer Worthy had Polish Free Army base; I remember my Great Grandad telling me that.”

“No, High Midcombe.”

“Oh well, that’s practically a London suburb, it doesn’t really count as Midsomer, does it?”

Winter smiled slightly, “Not really. So…”

But Stevens was only just warming to his musings. “What I mean, is Polish people have been coming here, living with us, for most of the twentieth century, nineteenth too, Jewish Pols fleeing the Pogroms, when did it become such a big deal? I don’t get any racism, right, but at least you can think, okay, Muslims think different or Afro Caribbean look different, for the stupid pea brained racists, but Polish, they are as white as us, they get pissed like us, so… Sorry, I do go off on one sometimes, studying a Masters in Sociology part time with the OU. But it does get to me, this kind of hate crime, I just don’t understand why.”

“I don’t get it either, but are there any indications it was a hate crime, and not just, I don’t know – revenge or a sick lesson from a debt collector, or something to do with the new East European shop which opened off the High Street?”

“Talk to you officers, read their reports, it is a hate crime alright.”

“You have more facts than me. I don’t care the cause; an old lady and some children are in hospital. So, the incendiary landed here? Any indications as to what it was?”

*

It was nearly two hours later that Winter was back at his desk, going through the witness statements and reports. He also chased down the family’s previous reports – dog mess and then human waste pushed through the flat letterbox and the shop door, leaflets posted through the door telling them to ‘go home’ and a brick through the window. The window smashed in and then blown out by the incendiary device had only just been replaced the previous week. Very little had been done apart from log them in the constabulary and national hate crime statistics. No budget for DNA with the human faeces. Maybe now two children and an elderly lady were in hospital, he could get the budget. He logged a request, linking the previous crimes, and emailed Fleur a copy of his request, with a small addition to it with some extra details, apologising as he knew there was no body, but hoped she would be disgusted by this too, and might scare the forensics officers and scientists she worked with into finding the time, even if the full budget for the DNA didn’t come down from on high. He could ask his boss to chase, too.

All the witnesses reported two men, they thought young, in hoodies and jeans, hoods up over their heads and faces. One was pale grey, with blue jeans, one all in black, with some kind of logo or cartoon on the front, but the witnesses did not agree on what it was on the hoody, or the heights of the men – some said tall, others average, one said small. This was quite normal, sadly, people rarely had precise memories, and often embellished or put their own spin on what they thought the remembered, all based on their own experiences and personality, and in this case, probably their own height.

He had got a map of Causton up and traced various routes they could have taken from the street to the town centre, or station, or bus station, or main ring road, and got access to the nearest traffic cameras, and car parks camaras, to see it he could spot them. He did, he followed two young men from four streets away to the High Street and into the bus station, and they got on a bus to Reading, over in Berkshire. He did not get a look at their faces at all. He emailed a request to the bus company to get the CCTV from the bus. He then logged all he could do and went back the burglaries in Badger’s Drift that the Chief Super wanted dealt with asap. At the moment it was all he could do. They might get lucky and get faces on the bus CCTV or even get the Chief to give the budget from the DNA in the faeces, but CPS wouldn’t touch that with no other evidence. It was only a supposition that the person who decided to take their own shit to post through another person’s letter box. How full of hate must a person be to do that, he wondered sadly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on many incidents which have occurred since 2016, including 2 in the 'Midsomer' area, that is Aylesbury, a concrete ugly town, but surrounded by some many countryside and village Midsomer locations, and Chesham which has been used for many a location.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not plotted or planned like most of my work, just an alphabetical list of crimes and off duty activities and a flow of imagination.
> 
> There is a companion to this, the Mundane Casebook of DI Hathaway, from Lewis.
> 
> If you have a suggestion other than murder or a ship, comment below with it :)


End file.
